this world of illusions
by ncfan
Summary: She is on her knees in the smoking room, alone, clutching at her face, wondering if it will stop. /Spoilers for EP3 manga./


This is based on the manga version of EP3's Tea Party, which got pretty intense near the end; more so, I'd argue, than the VN version.

I own nothing.

* * *

Her skin, the cloak of skin that forms the body 'Beatrice' is slowly fizzling away, evaporating like oil on a frying pan. It's not physically painful. Well, what it is, is not the sort of physical pain humans could put into words. It is the pain and terror of knowing that your body, everything that makes you what you are is being forcefully stripped away. It is the anguish of knowing that your essence is being taken from you, and what you will be left with is so pitiful and inferior that it would be like human evolution taking a downgrade back to _Homo erectus_.

Beatrice is on her knees in the smoking room, alone, shivering, clutching at her face as her skin fizzles away, shaking, alone. Lady Lambdadelta has departed, satisfied that she's made her point and has no more need to be here. Who knows whether she will carry out her threat, right here and now, without giving Beatrice another chance to prove herself worthy of the title 'Witch'? No one, for Lady Lambdadelta is truly a fickle person, deciding all on a mere whim.

So Beatrice is on her knees in the smoking room, alone, utterly alone, clutching at her face, hoping that no one will come in and see her like this. She is alone, wondering when it will stop, or if it will stop at all.

Wondering if she will have to look at what she was before, once again.

Eventually, the fizzling stops, like oil stopping its popping after the stove's been turned off. This could only have happened by the active will of Lady Lambdadelta; Beatrice can only assume that her Lady decided to spare her and give her another chance. It's only natural, she supposes; Lady Lambdadelta wishes for this game to be a cage for Lady Bernkastel, so of course she wants it to last longer, and how can Beatrice, the host, present the game to them if she's not presentable?

Finally, Beatrice's heart starts to beat calmly again, and she looks at the damage.

There's her arm, her right arm, to be precise. Someone else might see nothing wrong with it, but that's to be expected. Unless the arm of the original presence was significantly larger or smaller, had some sort of scar on it, had a wildly different skin tone or significantly more or less hair, you aren't going to notice a difference when this sort of things happens.

Beatrice can tell, however. Any Witch could, in her place. The damage is… bad. It's bad alright, but it's not undoable. Beatrice can repair this, if she puts in a great enough effort for long enough.

But when she sets her will to it, nothing happens. Beatrice doesn't need to try again, just to make sure she's doing it right. She can tell, right away, that she won't be able to. The wound is, for now, immutable. It can't be budged.

This is probably the last bit of Lady Lambdadelta's punishment for what she views as Beatrice's substandard performance in this game. She wants to make her sweat a bit, wants to make sure that Beatrice understands that she absolutely can't take it easy in the next game. She wants Beatrice to know that she's being serious. Who knows when she'll decide to reverse the damage?

As she gets to her feet, Beatrice is ashamed to note that her knees are trembling. She collapses into a nearby chair, her hand still clasped over the right side of her face. The front of her dress still smells strongly of tea from when Lambdadelta flung her teacup at her face, really trying to get Beatrice's undivided attention. Her neck and the portion of her chest that hadn't been covered by her dress looks scalded still, a burn maybe. The parts of her face left intact burn and throb as much as the scalded skin that Beatrice can see. _Aren't hot water burns supposed to be worse than getting burned by fire or hot metal? What did Teacher say?_

_Teacher…_

Beatrice tries to avoid thinking about anyone else any more. She had called for privacy, and so long as she calls for no one, her privacy will not be disturbed by any but those who would have been so discourteous as to come without being called in the first place. She has no wish for Virgilia, Ronove, or the seven sisters to see her this way. And she was no wish for Battler to see her this way. Her arm is bad enough. What must her face look like?

At all times, Beatrice is glad that she equipped the smoking room without mirrors.

"_You're not really giving it your all, are you?"_

Yes, that was the condition on which Lady Lambdadelta granted her the title of Witch, and solidified this form that now has been damaged, like holding a lighter up under a sheet of paper and leaving it singed. Lady Lambdadelta wanted her to create a game where she would give her all, an effort absolutely equal to that of her opponent's. Deadlock, it would be, and if by some chance Battler still managed to get an advantage over her, Lady Lambdadelta would tip the scales, so it was back to deadlock. Eternal deadlock, so Lady Bernkastel would not be able to leave.

Eternal deadlock, with the game never being solved.

_Is that what I want as well?_

On some level, Beatrice finds that it is what she wants, to spend as much time fighting with Battler as she can. It gives her joy, to argue with him, debate, watch his face crumple in misery and then glow with pride and determination. She likes it when he really steps up to the plate at her opponent. Nonetheless…

_I wanted you to solve it. My riddles, the epitaph, everything, I wanted you to solve it. Not too easily, of course. These things weren't easy for _me _to solve; why should I go easy on you, eh, Battler? Why should I make everything incredibly easy for you? A riddle's not really a riddle if it's too easy. If you solve all of mine too easily, that will just be pathetic. I might have to break down and cry._

_But I still want you to solve it. I've made it solvable for you, Battler, no matter how much you claim that it isn't. If you can't solve it, I might have to break down and cry._

Lady Lambdadelta won't be happy at all if Beatrice doesn't continue to play with the intention of _winning_, of crushing Battler's resolve rather than guiding him, however roughly, towards thinking about the truth and solving her riddles. She's already demonstrated how she deals with those upon whom she has bestowed her favor, and yet displeased her. _I want you to solve my riddles. I want you to discover the grain of truth at the bottom of the ocean of fragments. But not like this. I don't want you to seem me like this, half-bared. I want you to know the truth, but I don't want you to discovery it like this._

What will she be left with without her identity, her very form as a Witch? Beatrice knows, knows what it will be to go back to that sort of life, no, that sort of _existence_, for what she had before she became a Witch could not even be called life. The death of dreams, of hope. Monotony, apathy, broken only by a dull, unceasing pain, the wound that will never be healed, no matter how long she waits. The body that will never love or accept love, no matter how hard she tries.

To be recognized as a Witch for all time, instead of this temporary existence, would make all of that meaningless. It would be a past overwritten with a new truth, that Beatrice the Golden was always a Witch, and never a human, let alone such a shabby human as what she was. But the truth… is a fragile thing. It can be blown away with such ease, especially by the angry and discontented.

Lady Lambdadelta wants Beatrice to keep the game in eternal deadlock, and continue to work towards crushing Battler's resolve and robbing him of his ability to think. Beatrice has another goal in mind entirely. For that reason, even though Battler would have accepted her as a Witch in the game that has just drawn to a close, Beatrice threw victory away. She went back to square one, knowing that Battler would no longer trust her, that he would be even less likely to think about the nature of her existence, less likely to want to solve her riddles, notice them, or even question _why _she was doing this in the first place.

She thinks that maybe she has started to lose heart, just a little bit. This is torture for them both, but the longer it goes on, the more Beatrice thinks that, really, she's the only one being tortured here, and that it's getting to be juts too much.

But she will soldier on. She is the Endless Witch, Beatrice the Golden, ruler of Rokkenjima's night, killer of the Ushiromiya family. She is that, and absolutely nothing else, until Battler divines the truth. No matter what anyone says, she is Beatrice, until that time comes.


End file.
